Addressing Decadal Survey Science through Community Access to Highly Multiplexed Spectroscopy with BigBOSS on the KPNO Mayall Telescope

Understand

This document summarizes the results of a community-based discussion of the potential science impact of the Mayall+BigBOSS highly multiplexed multi-object spectroscopic capability.

• The KPNO Mayall 4m telescope equipped with the DOE- and internationally-funded BigBOSS spectrograph offers one of the most cost-efficient ways of accomplishing many of the pressing scientific goals identified for this decade by the "New Worlds, New Horizons" report.
• The BigBOSS Key Project will place unprecedented constraints on cosmological parameters related to the expansion history of the universe.
• With the addition of an open (publicly funded) community access component, the scientific impact of BigBOSS can be extended to many important astrophysical questions related to the origin and evolution of galaxies, stars, and the IGM.